Chapter 85, Emperor Chongzhen's Despair (I)

In August of the fifth year of Chongzhen, Jingshi

In the summer of this year, the street scene in Beijing was particularly bleak. Because of martial law throughout the city, there are many fewer street vendors. The streets smelled of dust and feces, and all that was left was a feeling of depression. Every street is the same sparsely populated with pedestrians, and most of the shops are crowded in front of them. Many shops simply closed their doors. As for whether it was because there were no guests, or because there were no goods, it is difficult to say.

-- Because the demon thieves of the Wenxiang Sect raised troops in Lunan and cut off the transportation to Beijing; Chen Xin of Dengzhou Town rebelled again, repeatedly defeated the imperial court sailors, and blocked Tianjin's shipping, so the grain and supplies imported from the south to Beijing were almost cut off. However, the previous Tatar Abatai broke through the pass and went south and the combat operations of the imperial court officials and troops, and consumed most of the original small amount of grain reserves in Beijing, and originally planned to replenish them as much as possible, but who knew that this year's new grain had not yet entered Beijing, and the sea transportation had been cut off together. What's even worse is that those wealthy merchants in Beijing still hoard Juqi and speculate on the price of grain, leading the price of rice in Beijing to skyrocket to ten taels of silver and one stone, and the price of wheat to eight taels of silver and one stone, and many of the poor people starved to death, the whole city withered, and the market was extremely depressed.

As the world became more and more difficult, the law and order in the Jingshi market also deteriorated day by day, and all kinds of rice grabbing trends came and went one after another -- driven by hunger, those ordinary ordinary people who were usually honest and honest also became fierce thugs, who spontaneously gathered together, armed with sticks and kitchen knives, and rushed to the grain stores in groups to burn, kill and loot. The green-skinned loafers in the city even appeared one after another, acting as the vanguard of the chaotic people. Jingshi Shuntianfu had to make up his mind, and in troubled times, he used heavy rituals, cut off hundreds of heads in one go, and hung them outside the yamen to show the public. Relying on the bloody and terrible butcher's knife, he barely managed to maintain the most basic order.

As for the counties and countryside of Shuntianfu on the outskirts of Beijing, they were even more miserable -- first there was a severe drought for many years, and then they were tossed half to death by the Tartars, and the officials and soldiers of the Qinwang who rushed to Beijing also went all the way to plague the localities, and finally made the roads full of beggars, starvation, and floating corpses in the canals. The homeless people peeled the bark of the elm tree for bread, the bran skin for porridge, and the rotten grain residue for the treasure. Under the extreme starvation, the gathering of people to besiege the official warehouse and intercept the grain continued one after another. There was also a rout, and all the estates in the countryside of Shuntianfu were plundered, even if it was Huangzhuang.

And in the Forbidden City, there is also a gloomy cloud, the palace maids, guards and eunuchs are all trembling, and even the concubines have temporarily extinguished their desire to compete for favor - in recent days, there have been several unlucky people who have angered the emperor because of their petty mistakes, and they have been dragged down and beaten to death!

“…… Kill, kill, I want to kill Chen Xin, kill Huangshi, kill Zu Dashou...... And that wolf-hearted thing......"

The Forbidden City, the Palace of Nourishing the Heart, the broken porcelain pieces all over the ground, Emperor Chongzhen's pale face was sickly flushed, and he kept roaring in a frenzied manner.

-- From last summer to the early spring of this year, the battle of the Daling River, which cost the imperial court millions of taels of liao and money every year, and even almost emptied the emperor's private treasury, only disappointed Emperor Chongzhen again and again on the battlefield, and in the end it simply turned into despair: The elite soldiers who were heavily supported by the imperial court were wiped out on the battlefield of Dalinghe, and countless losses were made in guns, artillery, food, horses, and vehicles. The salaries that the officials in the interior had collected only after they had used severe performance appraisals again and again, and did not hesitate to force the people to revolt in all directions, quickly disappeared in this rout.

After the defeat of the Battle of Dalinghe, the former first assistant Zhou Yanru and the emperor Sun Chengzong took the blame, and Wen Tiren succeeded him as the first assistant. Emperor Chongzhen originally thought that as long as the cabinet was replaced, there would be some new atmosphere, but who knew that what was waiting for him was one after another even more terrifying shocking news!

Chen Xin, the general soldier of Dengzhou in Shandong, who had been praised by him personally, suddenly pulled the flag and rebelled, first raising troops to break through Dengzhou City, forcing Sun Yuanhua, the governor of Denglai, to flee to the sea by boat, and did not know what to do. Later, the Dengju Navy Division shelled Dagukou, which shook Gyeonggi.

There is also Huang Shi, the world's number one general in Fujian who once swept through Liaodong alone and killed Nurhachi, but now he is actually reversed -- in view of the corruption of the Liao affair before, some people in the DPRK and China still mentioned that this person should be used to go north to level Liao...... I didn't want Emperor Chongzhen to think about whether to adopt this proposal in his heart, so the explosive bad news came from Nanjing that Huangshi colluded with overseas thieves to rebel, broke through the provincial capital Fuzhou, and killed Zou Weilian, the governor of Fujian!

These two bad news were sent to Emperor Chongzhen, who was still entangled in the defeat of the Daling River, one after the other, and immediately made the emperor angry and fell down. Later, at the court meeting, the ministers and hundreds of officials shirked their responsibilities to each other and buckled their hats on their heads, which made Emperor Chongzhen even more satisfied--Finally, after some quarrels, it was decided to appoint Zhu Dadian as the governor of Shandong, responsible for supervising the division to quell the Dengzhou rebellion. As for the turmoil in Fujian, the Nanjing Military Department tried to transfer troops to quell it. At the same time, he issued an order to the Yamen, the governor of Liangguang, demanding that the merchant ships of the thieves be expelled immediately, and that the trade between the people and the thieves be forbidden.

Who knew that the house leak happened to rain overnight, and before Zhu Dadian had time to rush to Jinan to take office, the demons of the Wenxiang Sect once again rebelled in Lunan, and attacked Jining to cut off the Cao Yun, and pinched off the lifeline of transporting grain and rice from Jiangnan to Beijing! As a result, the rebel army that was scheduled to enter Dengzhou had not yet been assembled, so it had to turn around and deal with the Wenxiang Sect rebellion first, and because of underestimating the power of the bandits, it also fought several defeats in a row.

After repeated discussions with the imperial court, in view of the fact that the ground in Shaanxi has become increasingly stable, it was decided to dispatch the trilateral governor Hong Chengchou to lead the Qin army out of Tongguan to pacify the rebellion between the bandits and the bandits in the Central Plains.

At the same time, the Liudu Nanjing and the central capital Fengyang also managed to organize all their troops to go north to the Huai River to block the southward path of the Wenxiang Sect thieves. As for the rebel general Huangshi who is far away in Fujian, he can't take care of it for the time being - it is important to keep the lifeline of the canal and the world of flowers in the south of the Yangtze River first!

After holding out in such a hurry until July, the Wenxiangjiao rebellion was still not pacified, the canal was not opened, not a single grain of grain from the south was sent to Beijing, the price of grain in Beizhili had risen to the sky, and the war situation in Fujian was even more ignorant. Although Hong Chengchou won a battle under Luoyang City and severely damaged a group of rogues, at this time, more than 100,000 rogue troops had poured into Henan, coercing the local hungry people to bloom everywhere...... At this juncture, the border armies of Xuanfu and Datong actually broke out into internal strife because of the competition for two silver mines, and defeated tens of thousands of soldiers and horses in one go! I really don't take the imperial court decree seriously!

Next, the cause of the civil strife in the two towns of Xuanfu and Datong has not yet been investigated, and an even more fatal bad news came from Shanxi - another group of Shaanxi rogues did not go to Henan to wreak havoc, but went straight to Taiyuan, eliminated the Shanxi Provincial Government in one fell swoop, and slaughtered the King of Jin!

After learning about this, Emperor Chongzhen's eyes were dark again, and he almost vomited blood on the spot - such a disaster of losing his relatives and killing the vassal king has never happened in the Ming Dynasty for a hundred years, but now it happened under his own rule, how can he still have the face to see his ancestors and ancestors in the future? !

Just when Emperor Chongzhen was angry, from the front line of Liaodong, which broke his heart, there was even more terrifying bad news again: the insidious and cunning, known as the reincarnation of the nine-tailed fox, the leader of Jiannu, Huang Taiji, and many Ming generals who surrendered in the battle of Dalinghe in Tongguò, lobbied and persuaded the remnants of the Guanning Army in western Liaoxi to surrender, which caused rumors and confusion in the Liaobian town of Jiliao for a while. In addition, due to the cut off of shipping and transportation, the money and grain allocated by the imperial court to the Guanning army were interrupted for two months, and Qiu Jiahe, the governor of Liaodong, and the eunuchs of the supervising army reported repeatedly, saying that the army's heart was unstable and that there was a fear of unforeseen disasters......

In this regard, in addition to angrily scolding Guan Ningjun for being disloyal and unjust, Emperor Chongzhen had no choice but to smile bitterly: reward the sergeant? It's light! The treasury Taicang has been so poor since the end of Wanli that the rats have been running away, and the emperor's inner treasury has not left a few taels of silver. Besides, Guan Ningjun, a group of bastards who only take money and don't work, how can they be appeased with a few rewards?

In short, looking at so much bad news coming in one after another, and the current situation that is getting worse and worse day by day, Emperor Chongzhen can't help but feel powerless, feeling that although he is a ninety-five lord on the bright side, in fact, he seems to have become a trapped beast in a cage, no matter how he struggles, he can't escape the tragic fate...... But he couldn't do anything other than sit behind the table and throw his temper at the tea bowl.

At this time, seeing that the emperor was furious again, the palace maids and eunuchs all hid far away, only Cao Huachun knelt on the ground, and cried bitterly with tears streaming down his face: "...... Emperor, please calm your anger and take care of your body, if you hurt your body because of those vulgar martial artists, the slave and maid will be guilty. ”

Looking at the big eunuch's face, Emperor Chongzhen stayed for a while, finally sat down in a gloomy mood, and picked up the Tang newspaper forwarded by the Ministry of War. The only good news is probably the "good news" that the governor of the three sides, Hong Chengchou, recently led his army to expel the Liukou and recover Taiyuan -- but even Emperor Chongzhen, who was a layman, knew that this was just the Liukou who abandoned the city and withdrew before the official army arrived in Taiyuan...... Because these rogues soon appeared on the Beizhili Plain on the other side of the Taihang Mountain, so that those prefectures and counties that had just been ravaged by the Jiannu Tartars this spring suffered again.

-- Dengzhou, Lunan, Liaodong, Xuanfu, and along the Taihang Mountains of North Zhili...... It seems that the surrounding area of the Kyoshi has been completely corrupted by the endless war. On the side of Nanzhili, the demon thieves of the Wenxiang Sect were also arrogant, not only captured Xuzhou, which produced fine iron, but also smashed all the way along the Huai River, and had the momentum of going straight to the south of the Yangtze River, and beat the officers and troops mobilized by Fengyang and Nanjing to the left and right. And the more distant Lingnan and Fujian, due to the news blockage, I don't know how far Huangshi and those overseas thieves have been in trouble recently.

With such a rotten and uncontrollable situation, with Emperor Chongzhen's limited intelligence, he no longer knows how to deal with it -- it is impossible to count on the waste of those corpses and vegetarian meals in the court, and after five years on the throne, the young Emperor Chongzhen has initially seen through it, and those so-called "righteous gentlemen" can boast on weekdays, and "talk and laugh and disappear" on paper. If they were faced with such a situation, they would all be dumbfounded, and they would hardly be able to do anything except engage in infighting, unleash their mouths, and shirk their responsibilities: the decay and collapse of the country is, in their opinion, the cause of the emperor's immorality, the eunuchs' interference in politics, and the incompetence of the military generals.

Of course, there are a few courtiers who are really willing to do things, but only God knows whether they can do their errands well.

“…… Hey, it's really a difficult national affair! I have clearly done my best, why does God still condemn the widow? ”

Emperor Chongzhen put down the Tang Bao of the military department, looked at Cao Huachun, who was still kneeling on the ground, and a feeling of incomparably depressed suddenly came to his heart - he couldn't help but start to miss the time when he was still a king of faith, at that time, the emperor's brother was responsible for the heavy responsibility of the country, and he only needed to read and play every day. And now the seemingly respected life of the emperor makes him in endless panic every day, and there is always a thunderous bad news every now and then, and he has no way to deal with it...... Emperor Chongzhen really felt that he was very tired, and he was so tired that he was about to collapse.